


I'll Crawl Home to Her

by sagesiren



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Deleted Scenes, Director Peggy, F/M, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Time Paradoxes, minorly au about time travel in their universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-29 05:30:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19823524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sagesiren/pseuds/sagesiren
Summary: “Grant?” Peggy’s hand was already going for her gun, calling him by his cover name in case an agent was within earshot. “What is it?”“I think it’s today,” he said quietly, wiping his hands and standing up. He started to gather his lunch and returned her blank look with a meaningful one. “When Steve shows up.”





	I'll Crawl Home to Her

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Hozier's 'Work Song.'
> 
> After endgame, I kept wishing that Peggy had had an interaction with time traveler Steve, and how that would have played out if her Steve had told her it would happen earlier on in their relationship.
> 
> I also love the angsty idea of a time paradox situation, where Steve can't do or say anything that could alter the future (except for the few times he's slipped up, like in telling Peggy that this meeting would happen).

Peggy flipped through the file Zola had given her while she ate, ignoring her long-suffering husband who had most likely joined her for lunch with the intention of them exchanging at least a few words. He was sitting across from her at the table in the otherwise empty break room, passive aggressively reading the paper for the second time.

“If you want to leave, you’re welcome to,” she said around another bite, underlining a sentence about diagnostics for Howard’s review and then brushing away crumbs. “I can try to make more time during tomorrow’s lunch.”

They both knew full well that she’d be equally busy, but it was the thought that counted.

At Steve’s lack of response, she looked up. He’d gone ashen, back straight as a board.

“Grant?” Peggy’s hand was already going for her gun, calling him by his cover name in case an agent was within earshot. “What is it?”

“I think it’s today,” he said quietly, wiping his hands and standing up. He started to gather his lunch and returned her blank look with a meaningful one. “When _Steve_ shows up.”

“Oh. _Oh._ ” She set down her pen, frowning up at him. “Do you remember what time?”

Steve checked his watch. “I think I’ve got a little while before I— _he_ gets here, but I should hunker down somewhere that he won’t go.”

Peggy nodded, getting to her feet before she realized she had no action to take. There had been other moments like this, when he’d give her a warning that something was going to happen then refused to give any more information on it, but this was the first time she’d be interacting with his younger self, the first time that she’d be directly interfering with something that might change the future.

She fiddled with the pen, twirling it in her fingers. “Is there anything I should know before he gets here?”

Steve gave her a tired, familiar look. “Pegs,” he started.

“This is different from the other events,” she interrupted, her hands going to her hips. “If I say the wrong thing, who knows what sort of damage I could do?”

“If you don’t know what’s supposed to happen, then it’s unlikely you’ll mess it up.” Steve grabbed the newspaper and rocked back on his heels. She could tell he was anxious to get out of sight. “If anything changes, you could be altering the—”

Peggy held up a hand with a sigh. “Alright, fine, I don’t need the lecture.” they’d argued enough about the things he’d felt he couldn’t say to her – both before the fact and while she was cleaning up the aftermath of her lack of knowledge – that she knew exactly how this would go. “I’ll figure it out.” She gestured for him to leave.

Steve hesitated, and she could see him struggling to not tell her something, as his already-creased face wrinkled with guilt. He finally leaned closer and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “You’ll be fine. No pressure, okay? Find me after.”

“I will. Go on.” She smiled tightly, and he took that as the permission he needed to leave.

Peggy pinched the bridge of her nose in the silence that followed. If she did anything odd in the next hour, if she misspoke, or tripped, or sneezed, or lord knew what other kind of minor thing that might disrupt all of space and time, then she could start an alternate timeline where her alternate self lived without Steve ever coming back to her all those years ago.

No bloody pressure.

If she had no idea that his past self would be showing up, she’d have been carrying on with her work, so she shook herself out of running through the worst case scenarios in her head and sat back down to finish her lunch and mark up the report, tapping her pen impatiently while she tried to get through it all.

When Agent Brewer knocked on the doorway to the break room, she nearly jumped. “Ma’am? There was a discrepancy in the quarterly R&D budget, and Stark would like for you to reevaluate.”

“Of course he would,” she muttered. “I’ll be there in a minute.” Peggy stuffed the last bite of her sandwich into her mouth, tucked the file under her arm, and then tucked a few extra strands of hair behind her ear, hoping she was at least presentable. Not that she needed to impress any version of Steve.

She kept her eyes peeled on everyone she walked past. This resulted in some flustered junior agents, some salutes from the vets who still hadn’t shaken the habit, and confusion from everyone else who was used to her tendency to read while walking.

Peggy didn’t let it bother her, too focused on Steve. She was half expecting to find him in Howard’s office, as and Howard been arguing over his lab’s budget for the last two weeks, and she knew he was avoiding her, but instead she found Stark’s assistant waiting just outside the office with a folder.

There was no way a younger looking version of the Director’s husband was going to slip into that office unnoticed.

Whatever fumes of patience Peggy had been burning through for the last hour depleted at the sight of the assistant. “Where is he?” she demanded. Howard was probably about to leave early, avoiding her on the grounds of seeing to his pregnant wife, but his assistant was a convenient target.

“Mr. Stark went to find Dr. Zola—”

She brushed past him and into the office, taking a quick and hopeful look around. “Is that what he said he was doing?”

“He just wanted me to give this to you, Ma’am,” the assistant said, holding out the folder with a placating look. “He has some new projects that could really use more of a… financial focus.”

“For the love of—You can tell Mr. Stark that if he is going to avoid me for much longer he can expect his funding to be cut in half, effective Monday. I have more pressing issues to deal with in this state, let alone the rest of the world.” She strode over to Howard’s desk and grabbed the first folder she saw in the hopes of finding another good reason to continue slashing his budget, and for the helpful effect of looking busy.

The assistant, Sergeant something or other – she couldn’t be arsed to remember his name considering he was the fifth assistant this year – turned to head out of the room, and Peggy focused all of her mental energy on her peripheral vision, hoping that as soon as he was out, someone else would walk in.

“I shouldn’t even be worrying about this right now,” she mumbled to herself, but trailed off as she actually caught a few words in the file.

Her technical knowledge of the Tesseract might not have been on Stark or Zola’s level, but she knew enough to understand that the unusual energy readings weren’t a good sign. “Sergeant?” she called, hoping he was close enough to hear as she hurried out of the office.

“Should I take this to Mr. Stark?” he asked, turning around and reaching out his hand.

“Find Dr. Zola for me instead. Tell him I’ll meet him in my office in fifteen minutes.”

Howard’s assistant hurried off. She watched him leave, mind reeling at the implications of the changed energy signature, Steve temporarily forgotten, when she stopped short at the security guards that were combing through the hallway.

If he'd seen the security, he might have left in a hurry.

She might have already missed him.

At least she had enough time to smoke before her meeting with Zola, even knowing how terrible they were for her health.

The week that she’d stopped smoking at Steve’s behest was when they’d had one of their bigger arguments about Steve’s strict, self imposed time rules. She very adamantly believed that if he was going to make her live through every terrible surprise of the century, the least he could have done was let her enjoy her favourite vice, and she knew for a fact lung cancer wasn’t going to be her downfall. Steve could only be patient with her nicotine-withdrawal-induced frustration for so long, and wound up giving up on the argument. 

Whether or not the pack she kept in her office now was to prove a point to him was neither here nor there. She was distracted as she walked in, trying to remember how many she had left in her drawer, and flicked on the light.

She froze. Standing in the middle of the office was Steve.

He was dressed in a stolen uniform, with fewer laugh lines than the man she was married to now, and more weight on his shoulders than the man who crashed the plane during the Second World War. She opened her mouth to say something, but all of her worries about altering the future made her silent.

“It’s really me,” he said, holding his hands up. She realized that, had she been faced with a Steve Rogers after thinking Steve Rogers had been dead for the last thirty years, she would likely have reacted the same way she was now. So far, so good.

“Prove it,” Peggy said, her voice weaker than she expected it to be.

He fumbled in a pocket and produced the compass, his eyes shining as he opened it up. He showed it to her, his shoulders hunched forward like he still wasn’t used to taking up as much space as he did. Or maybe he still felt awkward talking to her.

She stepped forward, touching the compass, her hand brushing his. “You’re here,” she said gently, looking up at him. It was part reminder, part message; he was here, in her office, and he was here, in the building, waiting for her to find him. “How is this possible?” she added, knowing that’s what she’d ask if she didn’t know.

“I can’t say,” Steve said, and his voice nearly cracked with emotion, “and I can’t stay for long.”

Everything about him was tired. She knew he’d spent a long eleven years without her, and this Steve was fresh from burying her, from losing everything.

She stepped closer again, putting an arm around him, and before she even had her hand settled on his back he’d pulled her into a near bone-crushing hug. “I’ve missed you,” she breathed against his chest.

“I’ve missed you, too, Peggy. So much.” He tilted her head up, eyes studying her face like he was memorizing it. He looked so young, the man standing before her, compared to the greying man who was likely hiding downstairs, sweet talking their head of accounting Jeanette into giving him one of the pastries she’d brought into the office that day.

It was even more striking to remember thirty years ago when this version of Steve showed up at her flat and seemed so old to her, so harrowed. She wondered what he saw in her, now, what he would see in her when he came back to her all those years ago.

“I still owe you a dance,” Steve added with a watery smile.

Peggy went on her toes to kiss him softly, a hand sliding up to cup his cheek. He deserved that much for what little time they had now. “We’ll dance one day,” she said. “You’ll buy me a record player, put on our song, and you’ll explain to me what all this was about, won’t you?”

“Yeah, I will,” Steve said, resting their foreheads together. His voice was dreamy, and she could practically hear him thinking about the date they’d made over the radio all those years ago. This time she knew it would really happen, even if he didn’t. Not yet. “We’ll have our dance, Peg.”

Peggy stepped back and brushed under her eyes. “I’m assuming you have some sort of mission to finish?”

He nodded, straightening his shoulders. “I’m happy for you,” he said, glancing down at her hand. “I’m glad that you… found happiness.”

She followed his gaze and flushed when she realized he was staring at her ring. God, she wished she could tell him that the inscription on the inside had his initials. “I’m happy that you have a chance at a new life,” she said, touching his arm as he moved toward the door, turning to keep him in her sights for longer. “And Steve?”

His hand was on the doorknob, and he wiped at his face before turning around, utterly miserable and far too young.

Screw the time space continuum; he’d always needed a push where she was concerned.

Peggy gave him a knowing smile. “I’ll see you soon.”

* * *

When she found him, he was sitting on the edge of Jeanette’s desk, accidentally flirting in that way he did, being far too charming and genuinely interested in what she had to say. Peggy stood there watching him for a moment before he pretended to notice for the first time that she was there waiting for him. 

“How’d it go?” he asked under his breath as he came over, pulling her into an abandoned conference room.

“Fine,” Peggy said, and looked up at him. “I might have… encouraged him to come back,” she admitted.

Steve just laughed lightly, pressing a kiss to her temple. “Yeah, I remember. ‘I’ll see you soon?’ Really, Pegs? I spent half the time in that battle trying to figure out what you meant.”

“You did not,” Peggy said with a laugh, giving him a gentle shove.

“Sure did.” Steve smiled, wrapping an arm around her. “Thank you, by the way, for saying that. I don’t know if I would have stayed otherwise. And, you know. For being my chance at a new life.”

“You’re so sappy,” Peggy teased, but her voice was soft, reveling in having this Steve, her Steve, standing so close. She, too, was glad she'd found happiness.

“You’re the one that said it first.”

She tilted his head down to kiss him. “Let’s head up to my office. I have some things to do, and you can sit there and look pretty while I take care of them.”

He grinned. “Yes, Ma’am.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you all enjoyed! 
> 
> You can follow me on tumblr at the same username :)


End file.
